Is Missouri trying to drive good teachers away from public schools here? Not only did the Legislature this year once again fail to permanently address Missouri's shamefully low teacher salaries, but the school districts themselves are increasingly using punitive and retaliatory policies against teachers who try to leave before their contracts are up.

As the Springfield News-Leader reports, districts are fining departing teachers hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and going after their teaching certificates under a 2016 state law that gives them that power.

Yes, a contract is a contract — but how does that kind of hardball, in addition to low pay and legislative interference in curriculum, attract more teachers to Missouri?

Public school teachers typically work under annual contracts in which they agree to teach for the entire school year. The idea is to ensure the districts have continuity in the classroom and aren't scrambling to hire new teachers midyear or have to rely on substitutes if the teacher leaves earlier than agreed. In that instance, the teacher is in breach of contract.

There's no question that puts districts in a bad position, and suing over that or any other contract breach is and always has been an option.

But in Missouri, the consequences for teachers who leave can be even more onerous. The 2016 statute allows districts to bring charges against the teachers with the state Board of Education, which can suspend their teaching certificates based on the contract breach.

The News-Leader reports that after initially using that extreme remedy just a few times a year, such cases increased during the pandemic — a time when, of course, the entire concept of teaching was turned on its head as classes went online.

The elevated number of certificate-suspension cases has continued post-pandemic. The newspaper found there have been 11 filings since last July.

Meanwhile, districts are being increasingly aggressive in assessing fines against teachers who break their contracts, charging them as much as $10,000 under the terms of the contracts. It's one thing to use fines to recover, say, a signing bonus, but that's not what it's about. The districts say those fines are necessary to recoup the administrative costs of getting new teachers in place midyear.

Teachers unions balk at that math. "There is no teacher in the state of Missouri who would cost $10,000 to replace," Missouri State Teachers Association attorney Kyle Farmer told the newspaper. "It is absolutely being used as a punishment."

There are all kinds of reasons a teacher might decide two months into the school year that this inherently difficult job is untenable. That's especially true in Missouri, where in addition to the familiar specter of low pay, Republican legislators this year put teachers in the culture-war crosshairs with threats to micromanage curriculum regarding race and gender.

None of this is to defend breaches of contract. The districts absolutely have the legal — and, it could be rationally argued, the moral — right to do what they're doing.

But our question is a pragmatic one: In an era of employee shortages generally, and a specific Missouri teacher shortage that qualifies as a genuine crisis, how helpful is it to signal to potential new teachers that if it doesn't work out, they won't merely be out of a job, but possibly out of a career and facing bankruptcy? It's a question school districts should ask themselves as they struggle to hire and retain teachers.

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